Today we’d like to introduce you to Karl.
Hi Karl, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
It is a momentous year for Minnesota ballet as we celebrate our 60th Anniversary. Minnesota Ballet began in December 13, 1965. It was started by a small group of individuals who wanted to give ballet students in the Twin Ports what everyone dancer wishes for, greater opportunity to perform. Over the years it has many directors who have each imprinted their vision and brought this organization forward to what it is today, a professional company that presents some of the highest quality performances in Minnesota.
My connection to Minnesota Ballet began like many other dancers, with a performance of the Nutcracker in December 1980. Minnesota Ballet (back then it was called Duluth Ballet) welcomed a young man, terrified of walking into a studio with tights and welcomed me and made me feel at home. Fed my interest for dance into a passion that led me into a life that I couldn’t have imagine from just seeing that initial Nutcracker show. That passion led me first to Minnesota Dance Theatre for more training then to Boston and San Francisco Ballet Schools and eventually into a career in dance. This career exposed me to some of the greatest artists in this field, taught more about myself than I could have imagined and showed large swath of this country and even international countries while touring.
For 60 years Minnesota Ballet has fanned the interest of young students and offered them the same opportunity. An opportunity to discover what it like to train the body we have to do amazing things and tell stories through movement while being supported my wonderful visual art in our sets and some of the most memorable music ever written.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Minnesota Ballet has had many challenges over the years. Building a school into a professional company comes with inherent challenges. There are many logistics like where to have the home base located, finding the right venue to perform in, keeping up enrollment, and of course, funding, funding, funding. Then there is the image that comes to mind when someone mentions ballet. Time has been kind to our profession on this front. More and more people have a positive idea of what we do, but many still think that it something that they can’t relate to. We aim to dispel that idea. We believe everyone is a dancer. We all have a way we carry ourselves, they we walk down the street and way to move through a crowd of people. That is all we do as trained professionals with our movement language.
Quite often we don’t realize how much we need to see live performing arts until we are sitting in the seat for a show. Live performances have a way of (for lack of a better expression) recharging the batteries to help sustain us though our daily life. What I particulary enjoy about dance is it requires the combination of mutliple art forms. Music and visual art in costuming and sets add an very impotant aspect to each performance that we do. Contnuing to strive to find what helps everyone feel welcome to try this for the first or to continue to give them something to look forward to every time they return to our shows is the ultimate challenge.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a performing arts organization, Minnesota Ballet works diligently to create as many opportunities as possible for as many people as possible to experience dance. We offer classes for ages 3-100 years old, in other words, if you are curioous about what it would be like to take a ballet, modern, jazz or tap class, we would love to teach you! Our teachers have first knowledge of what is needed to succeed in the dance world as they have had professional careers prior to their teaching with some are still in the midst of their careers. This makes for a very dynamic experience when in class and improvement that our students can see and feel.
Having a professional company attached to the school affords us the opportunity to present very high-quality performances that rival the big cities. We make sure to include our students in as many performances as possible. This past year we also started doing community Dance camps with the professional dancers. This gives young students an opportunity to not only discover dance, but also work right along side the professional dancers.
In the company we stress to our performers that doing steps correctly is definitely a worthy goal to aim for, but what we make the audience feel is far more important. With that in mind we work intensely on our performance quality, what narrative we are attempting to share with our audiences and how best to offer that to them.
As I went through my career, I was fortunate to have experiences that led me towards what really matters in a performance career. My parents instilled in me that an Artist must be honest and as truly a good person as possible because once you are on stage there was no hiding that. That has been my guiding principle and what I encourage each dancer towards that works with us. When we do that, we have more than we could imagine to offer to our audiences.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
From my personal experience, following your passion in the arts is allows a worthwhile endeavor. Whether we achieve moderate goals or great heights we learn so much about ourselves, how much we have to offer the world around us and how we affect the people we interact with.
Minnesota Ballet has been a beacon of this idea for 60 years. Without that ethos there are so many artists, both young and more mature, that would not have found a voice that felt comfortable and authentic to them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://minnesotaballet.org
- Instagram: @minnesota.ballet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minnesotaballet
